Every so often, I go on a tagging and filing spree. It took me a couple of hours, but I finally cleared the 700+ items that had piled up in my Evernote inbox. I was thinking about how to get even better at this because Timothy Kenny told me how he has a virtual assistant file the notes in his Microsoft OneNote notebooks.

Is my filing really worth it? Is it something I value enough to pay someone else to do? Could I explain what I wanted clearly enough so that other people could do it? Could I benefit from organization even if I’m not the one organizing things myself?

Before I dig into that, I should probably examine this question: What do I use Evernote for, and what could “better” look like?

Here’s a quick summary of the different reasons I use Evernote:

Type of note

Description

Organization

Improvements

Sketchnotes

Collection of my sketchnotes for easy searching

Shared notebook, tagged by type

Fine the way it is

Inspiration

Interesting sketchnotes, images, and web designs

Notebook, tagged by technique

Tag and file when clipping, identify key areas of focus

Visual library

Visual thesaurus / sketches of abstract and concrete stuff

Notebook, titles updated, duplicates merged

Improve workflow – delegate titling?

E-mail archives

Keep important information no matter which e-mail inbox it’s from

None at the moment; notebook and tags

Tag and file when forwarding

People, conversations

Quick notes from my mobile

Notebook

Add full names; consider Evernote Hello for mobile input?

Ideas and thoughts

Quick notes from my mobile

Notebook

Should have weekly task to review and act on; separate from main Inbox?

Actions

Quick notes from my mobile, when I’m away from Org

Notebook

Should have weekly task to review and act on / copy into my Org file

Cooking

Recipes, usually with pictures

Notebook, tagged by technique or dietary considerations

Review periodically; update when cooked

Wishlist

Resources to buy after more consideration

None at the moment; tags, probably

Tag and file when clipping

Reference books

Books held by the Toronto Reference Library, to request next time I’m there

There are several strategies I could use to manage my Evernote collection. I can choose different strategies based on the results that I want. Here are some possibilities:

A. Spend a few extra seconds tagging and filing things when I clip them. Advantage: I touch something once, so I don’t have to recall the context of an item.

B. Capture everything into an !Inbox, then file shortly after clipping. Advantages: I can select multiple entries and tag them give them the same tags, and copy all the note links in one go.

C. Capture everything into an !Inbox, then file weekly. This is my current strategy. This isn’t working out too well – things pile up.

D. Capture everything into an !Inbox, then teach someone to file.

I think strategy B will give me a good improvement in performance without me needing to bring in someone else.

One of the areas that I could generally improve in is integrating the notes into my outlines and plans. Instead of just collecting the information, maybe I can use Copy Note Link and then spend some time adding those links to my outline. Alternatively, I can copy the source URL right then and there, find where it fits into my outline, and paste the link. If org2blog respects comments, I could even use that as part of my workflow.

If I were to outsource more tasks in order to improve my effectiveness at learning, I think I’d gain more value from finding someone who can speed-read like I do, filtering through lots of cruft on the Internet to find high-quality resources. They could then clip those pages into Evernote for my review. That might be worth an experiment or two… Let’s find out how that works!

I have almost 10,000 notes in Evernote and finding things is challenging. I wish that Evernote would incorporate some type of relevancy algorithm a la Google, so we’re not so dependent on tags and exact match searches.

http://sachachua.com sachac

For sure! I find the related posts that turn up in Google to be somewhat handy, so that’s a start. =)

furansui

I recently barely use evernote (except for scans and web clippings) because I want to keep my notes and todo list in one application (orgmode). But I wonder if it’s better to keep even small notes or ideas in evernote…

http://sachachua.com sachac

I like using Org for my TODOs and outlines too. =) Evernote’s search feels faster (or at least I can make better sense of it versus just grepping through my notes), so I use that if I’m capturing a lot of notes. I also use it for keeping small notes and ideas when I’m on my phone, because it will synchronize with my computer. I thought about e-mailing myself, but I don’t like cluttering up my mailbox, so this is easier. I like Org’s organizational capabilities more, though!

I use EN with SmartTM for some time now and this is totally awesome to have this all organized in one place. I started with EN only but then I tought that it would be great if I had some system of todo’s to manage all my tasks cause I had over 4k notes in EN which not all had been things to do – with SmartTM it became much easier and efficient. Think you should check this app :)

http://sachachua.com sachac

Looks interesting. I like GTD. =) Seems iOS-only for now, but maybe the web beta will be nifty.

I think it might be cool to have a Scrivener-like interface for my Evernote notes – the ability to drag things into an outline, have an easily editable “cards” view (like snippets?), and spatially organize things…

http://about.me/annakaliska Kaila

Lately I’ve read that in a couple of weeks there’ll be also iPhone v. and in the near future devs plan to launch Android and web apps so it seems to be pretty good solution for all those who’re looking for a GTD system to manage tasks on a multiple devices. Drag&drop option will be also available soon as I know :) what about interface for me looks really cool I like those “flat” boxes :)